Horse racing notebook: Zenyatta still the top horse

Despite noise from Blame camp, there's no doubt

Published 6:30 am, Thursday, November 11, 2010

The deserving 2009 Eclipse Award winner got out-voted. Despite her perfect record, Zenyatta finished second to Rachel Alexandra for Horse of the Year.

Pin that blunder on the electorate. The National Turf Writers Association's more than 200 members vote for the top horse. About 50 members are with New York- and Kentucky-based news groups. Rachel Alexandra ran her ultimate races in those two states.

In 2009, Zenyatta hammered opponents in California. Only seven National Turf Writers Association members list their names with California-based publications.

Rather than choose objectively, the 2009 electorate went for the wrong horse, the one many voters saw up close and personal. Spell it h-o-m-e-r.

This year, Zenyatta extended her consecutive wins' record to an astonishing 19. Then she fell a lunge short of Blame in Saturday's Breeders' Cup Classic.

So Jerry Rice dropped a pass or two when he wasn't catching 1,549. Nolan Ryan yielded some home runs among those 5,714 strikeouts. And Zenyatta lost one race. Talk about irrelevant. She's still 2010 Horse of the Year.

That was then. Now good-guy Seth Hancock has become the villain of Zenyatta's Saturday defeat. Hancock is Blame's primary owner.

Hancock actually spoke these words after his colt defeated Zenyatta:

"The battle for Horse of the Year was fought about a half-hour ago. Blame won it. Zenyatta had her shot to get by and didn't do it."

The race was at Churchill Downs, site of May's Kentucky Derby. Had this been Derby day, one might attribute Hancock's confusion to an extra mint julep.

Blame won Saturday's race, but the Hancock colt has four lifetime defeats. Rachel Alexandra lost five times. This year, just as in 2009, there's only one Horse of the Year, the one who will retire with a 19-1 record.

Hate to be right

Wish this prediction in last week's notebook had been wrong.

"Blame probably has the best chance to spoil Zenyatta's 19-0 record. ... (Zenyatta jockey Mike) Smith innovated a path to victory in last year's Breeders' Cup Classic. Maybe that was a once-in-a-lifetime finish. You hope you're wrong, but this Saturday looks like the one on which the magnificent mare misses getting there."

Declines continue

The recession is said to be over, but thoroughbred racing must have missed that headline.

U.S. tracks offered 469 race days last month, down from 530 in October, 2009. Last month's wagers on U.S. thoroughbred races fell to $870 million from $933 million in the previous October. Purses also slipped.

Vive le Leparoux

Another country exporting a job to us? That's a twist.

Chosen our nation's top jockey in 2009, Julien Leparoux will be the sole U.S. representative in Hong Kong's Dec. 8 Cathay Pacific International Jockey Championship. The twist? Leparoux, 27, is a Frenchman who came here seven years ago.